Indian scientific organizations have experienced a tremendous growth in the last few years. Research Institutes have been carrying out scientific research in order to render ser vices in the frontier technologies. These scientific areas include basic and applied research in the areas of Space, Defence, Atomic Energy, Agriculture, Medical, Veterinary Research, Science & Technology and Mineral Exploration, Electronics etc. Scientists contribute to the development of advancement of the technology leading to innovations in self-reliance. Due to the globalization, resource constraints and technical complexities, the research institutes are under tremendous pressure to improve their performance. This situation calls for the improvement of productivity of scientific personnel. The motivation, performance and satisfaction of scientists are the most critical components of the scientific organizational effectiveness.
The critical examination of the motivation theories has revealed that the scientists can be motivated through the satisfaction of higher order needs. The achievements from challenging tasks act as task motivation for the satisfaction of scientists. The literature on the motivation of scientists is found to be an important input for formulating conceptual model. The understanding of motivational needs of scientists helps in developing motivation environment. It is very important to understand the needs and motivation variables of scientists, as they are known to be different from others. From the critical analysis of previous studies in the organizational context, the scientists are found to get more dissatisfied due to lack of the motivation system. This situation necessitated the current study on motivational needs of scientists. This also helps to understand scientist’s interest in a broader scope for evolving the suitable management strategies. The study has evolves a theory of scientists motivation and contributes to the literature on the body of knowledge on scientists motivation.
Scientists need to work within the organization and contribute to the development of scientific knowledge as a profession. The scientific performance is a knowledge intensive process, which depends on team building and motivation. The enhancement of the performance of scientists calls for institution of certain motivational systems. Therefore, the motivational climate initiatives have come into focus in the scientific organizations. The motivational initiatives are intended to bring about organizational improvement through improved satisfaction, organizational commitment and willingness to accept challenges. Certain personal antecedent factors like age, experience, qualification are expected to influence motivation system. These factors are expected to influence the motivation system of the scientists with a different degree of influence on satisfaction, organizational commitment and the willingness to accept challenges. Hence, these factors are considered in the current study. In order to understand the scientists motivation system a few questions emerged concerning the motivation climate initiatives. The questions are also related to the relationships among the motivation climate, performance and consequences. These questions gave rise to the following objectives for the current study.
1) To identify scientist’s motivation & performance variables and their associations with the individual factors such as age, experience, qualification, designation, promotions etc.
2) To study and analyze scientist’s motivation and performance need fulfillment with the organizational aspects related to technology, job/work environment, management practices etc
3) To arrive at the model on the scientists motivational system in relation to the performance & its consequences.
The current study establishes the significance of the relationships among the motivation climate variables and scientist’s satisfaction, organizational commitment and willingness to accept challenges. The study also focuses on the correlations among the motivational variables and the personal antecedent factors such as age, experience, designation, qualifications etc. The study also led to the development of the motivational relationship model for the scientists. The literature review gave an insight in to the historical and current research status in the areas of motivation system of scientists. A special focus is on the critical assessment of studies on the R & D personnel and scientists in particular. The research gaps are assessed in the areas of research focus, context and contents of the study, methodological considerations and analytical rigor. Preliminary interviews are conducted with about 40 scientists from four scientific organizations for understanding the variables of scientists motivation system. The preliminary discussion process is helpful in gathering the inputs on the motivation process of scientists. This has also helped in defining the operational aspects of variables for the research study. Based on the feedback and the inputs from the preliminary discussions, the research instrument is developed for the pilot study.
The reliability of the instrument is tested with the data from responses. The internal consistency of the items is tested by Cronbach’s alpha. The results obtained indicate that the instrument has an accepted level of Cronbach’s alpha of 0.7 and above. Based on the data, the item analysis for reliability is carried out on 16 variables, which have yielded the Cronbach Alpha of 0.7 and above. In addition, the overall instrument reliability is found to be 0.87.
Principal Component Factor analysis with varimax rotation is performed to check the construct validity for the subscales. Factor analysis has yielded factor loadings close to 0.5 and above for the items and the group variables. Factor analysis results have supported the statistical validity of the scales.
Need fulfillment analysis is made for motivational assessment in the organizational environment. Motivation and performance need fulfillment of scientists has been assessed. In general, the need fulfillment level is about 70%. The need fulfillment analysis has identified the level of fulfillment and necessity for further increase of the motivation climate.
To study the associations and the degree and direction of the relationship between 7 antecedent variables and 16 motivation variables, the chi-square test, correlation analysis (pearson’s correlation) are carried out. To test the effect of antecedent variables like age, experience, designation, salary, education level etc on the motivation variables, the one-way ANOVA is performed. Post-hoc tests (Bonferroni and Dunnets T3) are performed to see the differences between each level. A series of t-tests are e employed to study the significant differences between the different categories of age, experience designation, salary, education levels etc. The interrelatedness of variables is ascertained by the Bartlett’s test of sphericity. The data is tested for sampling adequacy by Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test. Analysis of the relationships between the motivational climate, performance dimensions and three consequence variables (job satisfaction, willingness to accept challenges and organizational commitment) is carried out by regression analysis. This analysis has helped to develop the regression model on the motivation system of scientists linking the interdependent variables.
Generally, the motivation variables are associated with the different antecedent factors. Different designation levels are found to be significantly associated with six motivation variables namely pay and monetary aspects, job nature, job satisfaction, individual development, organizational commitment an challenging environment. Different age groups are found to be associated significantly different with the four motivation variables like information management, job satisfaction and challenging environment. The age levels have shown negative correlation with personal efforts. Experience levels are found to be significantly different among eight variables such as pay and monetary aspects. Job nature, welfare measures, career growth, job satisfaction, willingness to accept challenges, challenging environment etc.
The experience levels are found to be negatively correlated and associated differently with personal efforts. Functional area of work and motivation variables has not shown significantly different mean scores with most of the variables. However, it is significantly different only in respect of individual development.
Salary levels are found to be associated significantly different in respect of five motivation variable namely pay and monetary aspects, job nature, challenging environment, job satisfaction and personal efforts. The number of promotions is found to be positively correlated with motivation variables. The mean scores of scientists with different number of promotions is associated significantly in respect of seven motivation variables. The higher mean scores noticed among scientists with higher number of promotions in respect of pay and monetary aspects, job nature, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, challenging environment, information management and individual identify.
The years of stay in the present grade is found to be negatively correlated. The mean scores of scientists with different years of stay in present grade are associated significantly with most of the motivation variables. The mean scores of scientists with higher years of stay in present grade have shown lower mean scores in respect of welfare measures, career growth, morale building, job satisfaction, individual development and individual identity. The higher years of stay in the present grade is found to be a de-motivating factor for the scientists.
From the need fulfillment analysis, it is found that there is an average gap of 30% in the 15 motivation aspects against the desired levels. The importance attached to these 15 parameters is also very high above 4 points indicating these aspects are vital and essential for their need satisfaction. The need satisfaction level is around 70% considering the effect of desired levels and the importance attached to the motivation aspects.
The findings from the regression analysis have supported the relationship among motivational, performance and consequence variables.
The job satisfaction as a consequence model has been well supported with 52% explained variation on account of the motivation and the performance variables with a significant F-test ratio. Six motivation climate variables(Pay and monetary aspects, job nature, welfare measures, challenging environment, opportunities for creativity and management style) and three performance variables(Career growth, morale building and individual development) have explained job satisfaction as an outcome variable. The model reveals that the motivated employee gives higher performance and enjoys greater job satisfaction. The job satisfaction depends on the motivation climate to the very high level. The higher motivational climate with better career growth, improved morale and individual development tend to lead to higher satisfaction.
The willingness to accept challenges as a consequence model has got good degree of support with38.2% explained variation on account of the motivation and the performance variables with a significant F-test ratio. Three motivation climate variables (Job nature, challenging environment and management style) and four performance variables(Morale building, individual development, individual recognition and personal efforts) have explained willingness to accept challenges as an outcome variable. The model reveals that the motivated employee gives higher performance and shows greater willingness to accept challenges. The high willingness to accept challenges depends on the motivation climate to the very high level. The higher motivational climate with better morale building, individual development, individual identity and personal efforts tend to lead to increased willingness to accept challenges.
The organizational commitment as a consequence model has also got good support with 34.1% explained variation on account of the motivation and performance variables with a significant F-test ratio. Three climate variables (Pay and monetary aspects, job nature, welfare measures, challenging environment) and four performance variables(individual development, individual recognition, personal efforts and contributions to results) have explained organizational commitment as an outcome variable. The model reveals that the motivated employee gives higher performance and leads to greater organizational commitment. The high organizational commitment depends on the degree of motivation climate. The higher motivational climate with improved individual development, individual recognition, personal efforts and higher contribution to results tend to lead to increased organizational commitment.
Overall the study and analysis on the three models has shown that the motivation variables have explained the three consequences namely job satisfaction, willingness to accept challenges and organizational commitment. Therefore, the management needs to focus on the steps to be taken for higher motivational climate. The management should work for improved individual development, individual identity, higher personal efforts and higher contribution to results, better morale building and assured career growth in order to maximize the scientist’s performance. This in turn shall lead to organizationally valued consequences namely, job satisfaction, willingness to accept challenges and organizational commitment.
While fulfilling the objectives, the research study has made significant contributions to the body of knowledge, theory building and practice on the scientist motivation system. The present research study reiterates many research insights, findings and views expressed on the topic of the scientists motivation system. It is evident that the topic requires more focused and devoted study for enhancing the contributions to the body of knowledge on motivation. The theory and research in the area of scientists motivation system is still at a development stage. There is a strong need for the contribution towards constructive theory building. The current study has broadened the scope of motivation and focused on how the existing research results could be utilized in developing the precise concepts on the scientists motivation system.
This research work enlightens the crucial aspects of the motivation system in research organizations. The study can be useful for the design of the motivational system in the scientific environment. The research work establishes the methods to quantify the measurement of the motivational variables. The questionnaire on the scientists motivation system is tested and found to be highly reliable. This questionnaire could be used as the diagnostic tool to evaluate the motivational practices and implications periodically. The design and validation of reliable instrument to measure the motivation variables is a significant contribution to the field research. It is a useful instrument for the longitudinal study for larger applications in future.
The present empirical research with field data the scientists under different scientific environments is a broad based research effort. This is a very critical contribution in the field of the motivational studies on scientists as a subject of study.
In this research work, efforts are made to see that the research results would benefit the scientific organizations. The practitioner’s community is struggling with the problem of understanding what really motivates scientists. The study makes a significant contribution in addressing this problem. The findings of the research study are very much useful to the practitioners in the scientific motivation.
The research study provides the guidance to the organizational designers on the possibilities of making structural adjustments as part of the motivational need fulfillment. The scientific organizations get an idea about how the motivation system would influence the processes to improve the performance of the scientists. The results from the sample data about the scientists antecedent variables helps to formulate policies for scientists with varied level of experience, age, education etc. The adoption of current research results on motivation system shall lead to improvements in the performance and satisfaction of the scientists. In the light of the research findings and conclusions, the management needs to focus on the steps to ensure higher motivational climate for improved performance. These conclusions and suggestions are very vital with the strong support from the research evidence. The study also identified category-wise differences, individual variation among the lower and higher levels of age, designation , experience, salary, promotions etc.
The research study has proposed a motivational framework in the beginning based on various parameters of study. Then the study progressed towards collection of evidence to validate the proposed model. Hypotheses dealing with motivational framework have supported the relationships in the model with good degree of explained variation. Therefore, the empirical evidence in support of the models indicates the strength of the motivation model. All three models have received varying degree of support while the job satisfaction model is highly supported. This model can be adopted by the scientific organizations for designing the motivational climate to achieve improved performance and to lead to the organizationally valued consequences.